[COLOMBO] South Asia’s medium-sized and secondary cities, rather than its megacities, will determine whether urban development succeeds or fails in the region says a UN report. The State of Asian and Pacific Cities 2015, released in October 2015 by the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and … Continue reading
[COLOMBO] An integrated resource recovery centre (IRRC) model, which uses composting, recycling and bio-digestion, offers an inexpensive solution to the escalating problem of waste management in Sri Lanka, say the authors of a new Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) publication. The island nation’s cities face multiple waste management challenges arising … Continue reading
[COLOMBO] Sri Lanka has made significant progress on maternal and child health but falls short on critical health services for vulnerable women, sexual minorities, the country’s at-risk population and those who live in former conflict areas, say the authors of a country profile on sexual and reproductive health. This two-part report on Universal Access to … Continue reading
[COLOMBO] High spatial resolution images captured by drones are bettering those generated by satellites, and enabling researchers in Sri Lanka to study crop health and irrigation in greater detail. A team of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has been testing the Swiss-manufactured eBee, or Electronic Bee in the skies above the Anuradhapura district, this … Continue reading
Scientists in Sri Lanka have developed mobile weather stations capable of capturing and transmitting near real-time rainfall data. Equipped with atomic clocks for precise time and date readings the devices log on to global positioning satellites (GPS) automatically. The devices are based on open-source technology and rely on local materials — at US$250, they are … Continue reading
[COLOMBO] Sri Lanka plans to boost its science, technology and innovation (STI) strategy through a newly created, state-funded organisation that is dedicated to building a conducive atmosphere among all stakeholders. Ajit De Alwis, project director at the Office of Science, Technology and Innovation launched last month (1 February), told SciDev.Net that the organisation’s mandate was to “ensure effective coordination and … Continue reading
[COLOMBO] Sri Lanka’s innovators need state recognition and funding to foster an innovation culture, a meeting has heard. “Our inventors need state recognition, society’s appreciation and funding to commercialise their ideas,” Tissa Vitharana, Sri Lanka’s senior minister for science, said at a ceremony to award the country’s innovators last month (17 Oct) in Colombo. Despite limited government support … Continue reading
[COLOMBO] A 12-nation study has found Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan rice samples having the highest levels of cadmium, a toxic heavy metal. Parts of Cambodia, France, Ghana, India, Italy, Japan, Nepal, Spain, Thailand and the US were also covered by the survey, the results of which were published online in Environmental Science and Technologyon 13 May. … Continue reading
[COLOMBO] An international team of researchers has developed a simple but effective urine test to diagnose lymphatic filariasis, a neglected parasitic disease that affects more than 120 million people globally. The test is more affordable and less cumbersome than existing diagnostic methods, scientists from Bangladesh, Japan and Sri Lanka reported in Parasitology International, on 13 September. Lymphatic filariasis, also called … Continue reading
[ACEH/COLOMBO/NEW DELHI] Tsunami warning systems appear to have worked effectively during last week’s (11 April) earthquake and aftershocks off the Indonesian coast of Sumatra, but experts say improvements are still needed. The 8.6 magnitude undersea quake triggered a tsunami warning in several countries. It was the first real-time test of three tsunami warning systems — in Australia, India and … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 